Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to endoscopic surgery, and more particularly, to a system for performing endoscopic procedures.
Background of Related Art
Surgery often requires access to internal tissue through open surgical procedures or endoscopic surgical procedures. As used herein, the term “endoscopic” refers to all types of minimally invasive surgical procedures including laparoscopic, arthroscopic, natural orifice intraluminal, and natural orifice transluminal procedures. Endoscopic surgery has numerous advantages compared to traditional open surgical procedures, including reduced scarring. Endoscopic surgery is often performed in an insufflatory fluid present within the body cavity, such as carbon dioxide or saline, to provide adequate space to perform the intended surgical procedures. The insufflated cavity is generally under pressure and is sometimes referred to as being in a state of pneumoperitoneum. Surgical access devices are often used to facilitate surgical manipulation of internal tissue while maintaining pneumoperitoneum. For example, trocars are often used to provide a port through which endoscopic surgical instruments are passed. Trocars generally have an instrument seal, which prevents the insufflatory fluid from escaping while an instrument is positioned in the trocar. Alternatively, an instrument may be inserted directly through an opening, i.e., incision, in tissue into the body cavity.
The size of the instrument used during a endoscopic procedure is limited by the size of port through which the endoscopic instruments are inserted. The larger a port, the larger the instrument that may be inserted therethrough, however, also the larger the resulting scar in the tissue. To overcome the limitation in the size of the instrument presented by the size of the port, it would be beneficial to provide an endoscopic instrument having a distal shaft with a first cross-sectional size that may be received either directly through tissue, or alternatively, through an instrument port, and one or more end effectors having an enlarged cross-sectional size that may be introduced into a cavity through an alternative means, i.e., a second larger instrument port, and may be selectively attached to and disconnected from the distal shaft within the body cavity.